Biological Narrative #9: manuMindo (2008) is a biological/protein music - digital video hybrid whose sonic platform is translated and sampled from the genotypic sources and phenotypic expressions that become intertwined in the exchange between human psychogeography and ecological retreat and encroachment. The ambient soundings of the work are based on bioacoustic field recordings from the Manu Biosphere Reserve of the Peruvian Amazon and the Occidental Cloud Forests of northwest (Mindo) Ecuador, two of the most biodiverse areas of South America that are currently in the midst of ecological shifts as a result of climate change and glacial recession in the Andes Mountains. The phenotypic aural expressions in this work are characteristic of territoriality, navigation and survival messages passed between the avian species of these bioregions.

Oscillating, interrupting and mixing into this bioacoustic ambient are sonic translations derived from the human locative proteins CRY 1 and 2 - the biomolecular roots of human psychogeographic remappings, explorations, settlement and ecological encroachment that have persisted through human history. In the translation of protein sequence to audio equivalents attention was given to the affinity that the molecules have for water - the common life giving solvent between man and nature. This sonic platform channels through the visual base of the work; video field recordings from the Manu and Mindo bioregions/watersheds that further track the exploratory paths that have yielded ecological impact, retreat and encroachment. The resulting work is a polyphonic video mix that bends the genotypic and phenotypic expressions of species collisions across multiple data scales to re-mediate the essential ties that all organisms have to navigation, exploration, habitat, vulnerability and survival.

The work brings the experimental hybridization of digital live cinema and performative bioinformatics into the form of “life cinema.” This subgenre of new media/digital cinematic composition builds upon the open-ended multimedia output of live cinema and the bending of biological computing, artificial life, ecological modeling and biomimicry to deliver sonic derivatives and visual translations of biological and environmental sensibilities into an immersive new media form.

Field research, audio and video recording of the work was conducted in the northern Ecuadorian Andes and Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve, Peruvian Andes, the Manu Biosphere Reserve, Manu Wildlife Center and the Madre Dios and Manu RIvers/watersheds of Peru.